Each situation created either by folly or wisdom has its psychological
moment. The behaviour of young Powell with its mixture of boyish
impulses combined with instinctive prudence, had not created it--I can't
say that--but had discovered it to the very people involved. What would
have happened if he had made a noise about his discovery? But he didn't.
His head was full of Mrs. Anthony and he behaved with a discretion beyond
his years. Some nice children often do; and surely it is not from
reflection. They have their own inspirations. Young Powell's
inspiration consisted in being "enthusiastic" about Mrs. Anthony.
'Enthusiastic' is really good. And he was amongst them like a child,
sensitive, impressionable, plastic--but unable to find for himself any
sort of comment.
I don't know how much mine may be worth; but I believe that just then the
tension of the false situation was at its highest. Of all the forms
offered to us by life it is the one demanding a couple to realize it
fully, which is the most imperative. Pairing off is the fate of mankind.
And if two beings thrown together, mutually attracted, resist the
necessity, fail in understanding and voluntarily stop short of the--the
embrace, in the noblest meaning of the word, then they are committing a
sin against life, the call of which is simple. Perhaps sacred. And the
punishment of it is an invasion of complexity, a tormenting, forcibly
tortuous involution of feelings, the deepest form of suffering from which
indeed something significant may come at last, which may be criminal or
heroic, may be madness or wisdom--or even a straight if despairing
decision.
Powell on taking his eyes off the old gentleman noticed Captain Anthony,
swarthy as an African, by the side of Flora whiter than the lilies, take
his handkerchief out and wipe off his forehead the sweat of anguish--like
a man who is overcome. "And no wonder," commented Mr. Powell here. Then
the captain said, "Hadn't you better go back to your room." This was to
Mrs. Anthony. He tried to smile at her. "Why do you look startled? This
night is like any other night."
"Which," Powell again commented to me earnestly, "was a lie . . . No
wonder he sweated." You see from this the value of Powell's comments.
Mrs. Anthony then said: "Why are you sending me away?"
"Why! That you should go to sleep. That you should rest." And Captain
Anthony frowned. Then sharply, "You stay here, Mr. Powell. I shall want
you presently."
As a matter of fact Powell had not moved. Flora did not mind his
presence. He himself had the feeling of being of no account to those
three people. He was looking at Mrs. Anthony as unabashed as the
proverbial cat looking at a king. Mrs. Anthony glanced at him. She did
not move, gripped by an inexplicable premonition. She had arrived at the
very limit of her endurance as the object of Anthony's magnanimity; she
was the prey of an intuitive dread of she did not know what mysterious
influence; she felt herself being pushed back into that solitude, that
moral loneliness, which had made all her life intolerable. And then, in
that close communion established again with Anthony, she felt--as on that
night in the garden--the force of his personal fascination. The passive
quietness with which she looked at him gave her the appearance of a
person bewitched--or, say, mesmerically put to sleep--beyond any notion
of her surroundings.